Modern computer systems make extensive use of network computing and network data storage systems. Such use has proliferated in recent years, particularly in distributed or virtualized computer systems where multiple computer systems may share the performance of the tasks associated with the computer system. Such computer systems frequently utilize distributed data storage in multiple locations to store shared data items so that such data items may be made available to a plurality of consumers. The resources for network computing and network data storage are often provided by computing resource providers who leverage large-scale networks of computers, servers and storage drives to enable customers to host and execute a variety of applications and web services. The usage of network computing and network data storage allows customers to efficiently and to adaptively satisfy their varying computing needs, whereby the computing and data storage resources that may be required by the customers are added or removed from a large pool provided by a computing resource provider as needed.
The proliferation of network computing and network data storage, as well as the attendant increase in the number of entities dependent on network computing and network data storage, has increased the importance of balancing both data availability and data integrity on such network computing and network data storage systems. For example, data archival systems and services may use various types of error correcting and error tolerance schemes to ensure data integrity and the expense of data availability leading to a degraded customer experience due to delays in retrieving the data from the data archive.